


Peace

by orphan_account



Category: Odin Sphere
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 03:39:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17841743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Velvet and Cornelius debate the nature of a Pooka's immortality and what significance such a curse (or gift) might have after Armageddon.





	Peace

**Author's Note:**

> This speculative fic takes place directly after the 'True Ending' of Odin Sphere and thus obviously contains spoilers for anyone that might not have completed the game.

Immortality isn't what the heroes and villains of fairy tales would have the reader believe. It is not the holy grail of wishes but rather the most cruel of curses cast only on the most damned of souls. For a thousand years one will walk the world knowing their existence is wrong and against natural order and more importantly, against one's desire. Every breath taken beyond one's time is an exhaling of evil that pollutes the surrounding air with malaise and melancholy.

This is what she tells him.

"These rabbit masks we wear are a lie", the specter princess of a dead kingdom continues, "You are not as I know you to be and I am not as you know me. We lie to ourselves and to one another. Humans are blessed with only a hundred years to their lives, brevity being the key to their sanity. Death is not to be feared, it is the great equalizer and healer. The earth cannot grow rich and beautiful without fresh blood; just as animals need plants, plants need animals. To deny the earth its rightful inheritance is the most unforgivable of sins. Continuing on as Pooka makes us less welcome than demons here in the new world."

Velvet and Cornelius have been collecting Valentinian coins scattered across the globe for centuries and they are close to finding the last of the magical talismans. Cornelius agrees with Velvet but he is afraid of unintended consequences. Every path taken in life holds a balance of treasures and traps. It is no small request to give up one's immortality and the comforts one would never have the chance to enjoy without it.

They have watched over the land and sea as life slowly but surely returns. Imagine an ocean seemingly devoid of all fish and now picture the rivers of tears that had spilled down the Pookas' faces when walking across a beach and seeing a wave heavy with bioluminescent plankton light up the night decades after Armageddon. Imagine the plains with no horses, the valleys with no butterflies, the trees with no birds. Cornelius had screamed to the point of rupturing his throat when an insect was found skittering across the sand, having erupted with a joy he didn't know himself capable of having anymore. Oh, and when that little blue bird visited Velvet... she had been so overwhelmed that she lost her sight afterwards in a fit of madness, her senses only returning after a coma-like slumber. The planet had been empty for so long but nature found a way and so too did humankind. Gwendolyn's survival was proof of that as were the generations that blossomed after her reign alongside Oswald.

Yes, Cornelius and Velvet have suffered much but they have also experienced the greatest of wonders. They are wise and strong of which the sum of their knowledge and power cannot even be calculated. They are the wisest and strongest by very virtue of being the oldest creatures currently alive. It is armed with this self-awareness that Cornelius fears that the Pooka curse that they fight against might actually be a blessing in disguise.

"What happens when the people learn one of the most terrible secrets of the universe...  that there were once gods but the gods are now dead?"

"Gods?" Velvet asks of Cornelius. "You think us gods?"

"Are we not in every way outside of name? What if we misunderstand our place and in fact these cursed forms are good and right, desirable even? Can evil be good, my love? I do not know but the moon is as important as the sun, its shadow soft on the eyes, providing comfort and shelter where light would eventually eat away the universe if allowed to run free without boundary. Would it be irresponsible and immoral to give up all the power we have accumulated when instead it could be used to protect budding life? What if mankind is doomed to repeat its mistakes?"

"You wish to guide Gwendolyn's children in a particular direction?" Velvet looks at her husband in such a way that makes him rethink his position on the matter.

"Am I arrogant for believing us capable?" Cornelius laughs weakly. His big rabbit eyes are tired and sad, his tone stapled with a twisted humor. "On the other hand, maybe a world without gods would be best. Though I long to help, I worry that I might grow into a tyrant in my quest. It is after all the fault of kings that led to the previous world being laid to waste and what a terrible fate it would be if I grew so mad that I inadvertently brought upon the destruction of the present one! Suppose we survive not just one but two kalpas of rotating death. A third? What of a fourth or fifth? At the end of eternity, we would no longer be gods but something else entirely. Perhaps our bodies would have grown so powerful that they evolved into worlds in and of themselves. Fancy Mother Nature once being an honest woman turned Pooka!"

"You are drunk," Velvet whispers.

He laughs again and nuzzles into his wife's neck. Cornelius is indeed drunk - off of the new world's first crop of grapes and the new man's first bottle of wine. "Do you think ill of me for it?" 

Velvet considers it with a thoughtful pause, pawing at his glass and taking a sip. "No, I do not. If anything, I regret that I am not as deeply flushed in purple  as you. Perhaps then I would be able to indulge you in your grand fantasies. How frightful though, was the earth truly once as miserable a creature as I? If so, is she better or worse off now? Does Mother Nature continue to sob into the night as I do, burdened by the lie of her own existence? A lie is a lie! We are people, not animals or planets! People!"  

Rabbit-like in appearance and increasingly in gestures, Cornelius begins grooming Velvet with little rabbit kisses, licking the top of her head and washing away her gloom. "It is in your words that I have found my answer to a question that has plagued my wildest nightmares. If endless life is too much for you then I willingly and gladly renounce my immortality as a Pooka in exchange for the mortality granted of a common man. I would rather be dead anyway if the alternative would only lead you deeper into unhappiness. It is also not an option for one of us to vie for mortality and the other for immortality because I cannot live without you. And so, upon having found the last of the coins, let us join hands and walk together into our last one hundred years in bliss knowing that an end to suffering is in sight."

Velvet sniffles, her little rabbit nose twitching up and down. Although Cornelius has said what she thought she had wanted to hear, the weight crushing her spirit has not lifted. "Funny. It is your selflessness that wounds me even more. As you doubt yourself, I too am now doubting. Would neither road taken lead to peace?"

"Is peace what you crave above all else?"

Lifting the glass and swallowing her image, wine staining her fuzzy lips, Velvet isn't sure she knows the answer. Her whiskers bounce up and down with each enunciated syllable, "Ask me again in the morning. I won't let regret be the spell that ultimately ages us in the end."

Cornelius wraps his arms around Velvet as they watch another sun set, perhaps one of their last or maybe one of countless more.

"What do you want most?" She says after a long silence shared lovingly between them.

"Other than you?" He hugs her tighter.

"Other than me." She smiles faintly, turning around in his embrace. She sees her reflection in her husband's eyes but this time she can't tell if she sees Velvet the Human or Velvet the Pooka, both, or neither.   

"Other than your happiness?" He wonders if it would be alright to kiss her the way a man would a woman instead of as a rabbit. As unbelievable as it sounds, the oldest couple in the world has yet to consummate their marriage. Suppose they did choose to remain as Pooka - would there ever be a time that Cornelius and Velvet would be comfortable enough in these wretched forms to... well... physically express their love?

"Other than my happiness." Their noses touch and they are so close to one another that they can hear each other's heart beating. Their rabbit ears amplify the sound of their rabbit hearts and again they are reminded that they are 'Pooka'  - not truly rabbits, just cursed people.

Velvet pulls away and Cornelius lets her go without protest.

Everything would have been easier if they'd been born rabbits and never known what it was like to be human.

"Peace works for me too."


End file.
